Nearly 7,000 people from India filed applications for asylum in the United States earlier this year, according to a report by the United Nations refugee agency.
The UN Refugee Agency said in its Global Trends report that 68.5 million people globally were displaced as of the end of 2017.
The trend of increasing asylum in the U.S. claims from people originating from the north of Central America too continued.
According to report, there were 197,146 refugees as at 2017 end in India and 10,519 asylum seekers with pending cases. About 40,391 asylum seekers from India at end of last year.
The report further added since 2013, for the first time Syria was not the most common country of origin for new asylum-seekers. Nationals of Afghanistan were in the highest number of asylum claims filed by individuals who submitted 124,900 claims in 80 different countries.
From Myanmar, the majority of majorities at the end of the year were hosted by Bangladesh, whereas other countries with sizable populations of Myanmar refugees were Thailand, Malaysia, and India.
The report said that refugees who have fled their countries to escape conflict and persecution accounted for 25.4 million of the 68.5 million. This is 2.9 million more than in 2016, also the biggest increase UNHCR has seen in a single year.
As of 31 December 2017, Asylum-seekers, who was still awaiting the final result of their claims to refugee status in the meantime rose by about 300,000 to 3.1 million. People displaced inside their own country accounted for 40 million of the total, somewhat fewer than the 40.3 million in 2016.
We are at a watershed, where success in managing forced displacement globally requires a new and far more comprehensive approach so that countries and communities aren’t left dealing with this alone, said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
Merely there is a reason for some hope. Already, a new blueprint is being pioneered by fourteen countries for reacting to refugee situations and in an affair of months, a new Global Compact on Refugees will be set for acceptance by the United Nations General Assembly.
By Sowmya Sangam
